Helmet Law

Working on Judiciary Committee issues on the Senate staff, I became involved in numerous controversies of the day, none more so than the contentious debate surrounding the mandatory wearing of helmets by motorcycle riders. Among the numerous Manichean perceptions of “freedom” in California, none was more fraught than whether the state should require those plying its streets on motorcycles to protect their heads from catastrophic injury while speeding down freeways, city streets, or country byways on tricked out choppers and chrome-plated hogs. 

On one side were Harley riding gang-bangers, weekend rallyists, and plain folks just using them for transportation, who viewed mandatory helmet laws as nanny state intrusions on their freedom of expression and the God-given right to explore California’s roadways with the wind in their hair and babes grasping their roaring, belching engines. 

On the other, or so it was portrayed, were the whining, nanny state, liberal, hand wringing un-American (likely communist influenced) wimps, determined to destroy all that was good and decent among a liberty loving people. And doctors.

Senator Zapata came to this topic with much trepidation, knowing that on subjects such as this, reason quickly became the bastard stepchild of emotion. He decided to take it on when his fifteen-year-old son Lenin, while catching a ride from school on the back of a sensible Moped without a helmet, barely escaped serious injury when the bike hit an oil slick and wiped out, wrapping itself around a telephone pole. Lenin escaped with a few cracked ribs and multiple abrasions. 

The surgeon at the emergency room at MLK Hospital told Zapata that his son was extremely lucky; six inches to the left and his head would have hit the pole, and likely would have been fatal even at the slow speed at which he was traveling. It seems the human cranium had limited abilities to bang into solid objects while traveling at any speed above a walk without sustaining serious injury.

So Zapata, as was his way, determined after much research and conversations with numerous medical personnel, to attempt to do something about the very preventable injuries and deaths associated with riding sans protection. He promptly walked into a buzz-saw. By the time I arrived on staff, Zapata was three years into his quixotic quest to save lives. The first two resulted in failure, even though Zapata served as Chair of the Assembly Health Committee, which had jurisdiction on the subject,  before winning election to the Senate. 

The opposition was vicious and raucous, usually devoid of fact, but effective, nonetheless. On the day of scheduled committee hearings, leather clad Hell’s Angels would block the roads leading to the State Capitol, driving slowly and with menace aforethought, handlebar to handlebar, while circling the building and gunning their engines with the roar of a thousand Harleys, drowning out all other sounds, before parking in long rows on both sides of Capitol Mall and entering the building en mass. 

They flooded the six floors of the usually staid Capitol building, passing out leaflets which threatened civil insurrection if the members dared support this socialist plot. At the hearings themselves, rational supporters - doctors, insurance companies, and mothers who had lost children, all armed with statistics and evidence - were drowned in the sturm und drang of the shrill onslaught. Reason twice lost out to emotion owing to the timidity of legislators having to face a well-organized, impassioned, (and possibly violent) single issue opposition. 

Zapata was reviled by those opposing the potential restrictions. Introducing it a third time as his first bill upon being sworn into the Senate, his face and name were well known in biker bars up and down the state. I had slightly amended it from the earlier Assembly versions and put it across the desk in early January before heading out for a long weekend with a new girlfriend (later to become wife number two and mother of child number two) up the coast in Mendocino.

I did not know Tracy particularly well at this point, having met her only a few weeks before when an ex-student in my UC Davis Environmental Policy class, interning for me at the Capitol, asked if her boss could join us on a rafting trip. Tracy and I had hit it off somewhere between Satan’s Cesspool and Hospital Bar rapids, and after one date, I had invited her for the weekend in Mendocino.

A lovely little town on the north coast, Mendocino is a fascinating seaside berg, a favorite of both San Francisco Avant Garde artist types and more salt of the earth locals from the surrounding rural north woods. My new girlfriend and I, on our first weekend away together, checked into the historic mid-nineteenth century Mendocino hotel, overlooking the headlands with a stunning view of the coast. 

Mendocino is very romantic, and I was happy to escape a dreary Sacramento winter with Tracy. There are art galleries galore, great restaurants, and lovely hiking trails on the headlands a short distance up Hwy 1 at Russian Gulch and MacKerricher State Park. Wildflowers abound and the Skunk Train out of Fort Bragg meanders through beautiful meadows, canyons, and a redwood forest. I was willing to pay for a luxury cottage room with garden view and fireplace early in a relationship to test a potential girlfriend’s response to the rustic surroundings. 

We checked into our room and wandered the quaint streets, and when the afternoon chill drifted in on the fog, we decided to stop into Dick’s Place, a local biker-friendly hangout on Main Street. I was just beginning to learn that this somewhat introverted woman had a vicious sense of humor, when, several cocktails into the late afternoon, she asked White Fang, the appropriately moniquered bartender wearing a tight-fitting Harley Davidson tee over his ripped upper body, and sporting copious amounts of ink, mostly in a skull and crossbones motif, what he thought of the pending “helmet law” legislation. He noticeably grimaced, showing both a missing front tooth and two gold incisors with diamond studs, and put up both hands to silence the bar, now filled with numerous bikers and lumberjack types. 

Yelling over the clamorous sounds of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” roaring from the jukebox, he loudly put to the now hushed crowd the following question:” The young lady wants to know what I think of the douchebags who are attempting to make us wear helmets while riding? Tell her what we think of that stupid fucking idea up here in the State of Jefferson!” He shouted. 

It was hard to make out all the well thought out policy positions that were proffered to that probing question. Best I could tell, the nicest were summarized as, “Fuck those pointy headed father raping dickweeds”, and the less sanguinary responses proposed numerous means of slowly torturing the offending motherfucking commies over an open flame in a fiery pit in hell. It was at this point that Tracy leaned in close to Mr. Fang and whispered, “My date here wrote the bill. He is carrying it for the nice senator from Los Angeles,” pointing at the wanted poster featuring a good likeness of Zapata next to the brightly flashing Coors neon on the wall. 

Thank God Jimmy Page’s screeching guitar drowned out the friendly barkeep’s response, but I quickly threw some bills on the bar, grabbed Tracy by the arm, and backed out slowly making a hasty retreat. When we hit the street Tracy, drunk on her ever-lovin’ ass, was roaring with laughter, and I knew I had a keeper. 

The following week, after we arrived back in Sac, the bill was to be heard in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The leather clad, pierced and tattooed opponents were once again fully present in their malevolent numbers.

The hearing room was full beyond capacity, supporters and opponents filling all the seats, as well as the balcony overlooking the room, and spilling out into the hallways. Behind the dais the recently restored Works Project Administration mural depicting the state’s history, brilliant in its color and detail, shined brightly, providing a certain gravitas and solemnity to the evening. 

Senator Zapata was called to present the bill at 11 p.m., six hours after the hearing had begun. The room was abuzz as he approached the dais, standing erect in his dark navy pinstripe Armani suit and red silk tie with scarlet pocket square, looking the part of a Castilian nobleman behind the blonde wood podium, slate-gray hair slicked back, copper hued skin glistening beneath the harsh klieg lights illuminating him and his witnesses seated around the deeply polished rectangular table to his left, where I sat at the end nearest the boss. 

Zapata began slowly, discoursing on the statistics, the probability of serious injury in even a minor collision, and finishing with the anecdotal story about his son. Next came supporters, including insurance industry lobbyists discussing costs associated with motorcycle accidents, a representative of the California Highway Patrol describing the carnage they had witnessed when responding to accidents involving bikes and autos, and finally a long line of parents with tragic stories to share. 

Zapata closed, his voice rising to a crescendo, imploring first in English, then in Spanish for the assembled reporters from Univision and Spanish language media up and down the state, to do the right thing, ignore the noise and the false depictions of disappearing freedom, and add their voices of support. Before sitting, he asked to reserve time during his closing for one last witness, who was late to arrive.

When the opponents took their seats at the table and began their well-rehearsed diatribes against the nanny state and their “God-given right” to ride free and unimpaired, linking this to their claims, not supported with any data, that helmets decreased peripheral vision and thus increased fatalities, Chairman Ryan sat impassively for a few moments and then interrupted the leader of a Southern California motorcycle club with a question. 

“Sir, injuries sustained by your ‘community’ when you are unable to niftily avoid accidents, are extremely expensive to treat and often exceed insurance coverage, on the rare occasions when you good citizens deign to purchase such mandatory policies. Would you support a bill that allowed you to ride without helmets, but required your bike to carry a sticker that states the following? THE RIDER HEREON ASSUMES ALL LIABILITY FOR INJURIES SUSTAINED. THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, NOR ANY MEDICAL PRACTITIONER SHALL NOT BE REQUIRED TO PROVIDE CARE ABSENT PROOF OF ABILITY TO PAY.’”

The witness was initially startled. Then, regaining his composure, he huffed at Ryan, “Mr. Chairman, you do not seem to be taking this matter seriously.” Ryan shot back, “Actually sir, I am taking this with all seriousness. I have listened to the witnesses. You argue your freedom is at stake and that you have a right to ride without a helmet despite the massive evidence of the risks involved and the costs of treatment when accidents occur. I am arguing on behalf of the taxpayers of California and the doctors and hospitals who then pay for what you call your freedom and what I believe is more accurately described as free loading. I am giving you an opportunity, which you appear to be rejecting, to take responsibility for your actions. True freedom comes with concurrent responsibility.” With that, the chairman turned off his microphone, and as the red light faded, sat wearily back in his cushioned chair.

The hearing proceeded as usual, as witness after witness came forward with specious claims as to the rights they would lose. When they were all finished, Zapata indicated that his last witness had arrived and asked if he could address the panel. A gentleman of middle age approached, dressed in a white lab coat, bespectacled, with salt and pepper hair. He introduced himself as Dr. Aldon Brathwaite while his CV was distributed to members. “I am the lead surgeon at the organ transplant department at the University of California Hospital in Berkeley. I am here to oppose the bill.” You could hear a pin drop with this pronouncement. The room became deathly quiet. 

What was Zapata up to? “I oppose this legislation because it will deprive me of donors,” he said, in a barely audible voice. More than 70% of the livers, kidneys, and hearts that are harvested come from helmetless motorcycle riders, and if you pass this legislation, most will survive accidents, costing me money and drastically decreasing the product on which I make my living.” 

The room was stunned. It took a second for what the good doctor had just said to sink in. When it did, it was as if a thousand jet engines had suddenly roared to life. Ryan banged his gavel once, twice, three times, before bringing the room to order. At that point, decorum having been restored, Dr. Brathwaite, his ploy now fully understood, continued his testimony, reciting statistic after statistic, study after study, proving the efficacy of helmet laws where they had been implemented. When he had concluded, Zapata simply closed by asking for an “aye” vote. The bill passed by a solid majority, and continued through the legislature on the wings of the doctor’s brilliant presentation, being signed into law several months later.